The growing prominence and value of digital media, including the libraries of full-featured films, digital shorts, television series and programs, news programs, and similar professionally (and amateur) made multimedia (hereinafter referred to generally as “videos” or digital media” or “digital media assets or files”), requires an effective and convenient manner of categorizing, managing, visualizing, and manipulating such digital media as well as any related or underlying metadata for a wide variety of purposes and uses. Metadata is merely information about the digital media, as a whole, or associated with particular images, scenes, segments, or other subparts of the digital media. For example, metadata can identify the following types of information or characteristics regarding the digital media, including things such as actors appearing, themes present, or legal clearance to third party copyrighted material appearing in a respective digital media asset. Metadata may related to the entire digital media (such as the title, date of creation, director, producer, production studio, etc.) or may only be relevant to particular segments, scenes, images, audio, or other portions of the digital media. Preferably, when such metadata only related to a subportion of the digital media, it has a corresponding time-base (such as a discreet point in time or range of times associated with the underlying time-codes of the digital media). Categorization and management of such metadata as it relates to digital media assets, particularly when such metadata can be tied closely to specific and relevant points in time or ranges of time within the digital media asset, can provide significant value to the content producers, advertisers, and other stakeholders; however, accurate creation of such metadata and determining what metadata to capture or use requires considerable investment of man-hours and use of computing technology. Further, existing means of using metadata remain deficient in effectiveness and reliability.
One example of a potentially difficult task in present digital media management systems is providing media for promotional campaigns surrounding new films or television programs. A studio may require one or more clips for distribution to various outlets to coincide with the appearance of an actor or actress on a television show to promote the film. Often, however, various constraints—such as the need to eliminate clips containing profanity or other mature material—may require the studio to carefully select among many possible clips. Alternatively, various legal matters may prevent a studio from widely distributing certain works through particular mediums, or before release of the film. For example, a studio may have limited rights to use a third party's musical score. Existing technologies in such a situation may require a studio representative to manually screen the bulk of a film, using his or her discretion to determine the most appropriate clip to provide for the promotional campaign given the various constraints.
Manual categorization, screening, and selection of digital media introduces obvious disadvantages to the system. Such disadvantages include human error, oversights, misunderstandings, poor exercise of discretion, or carelessness. Additionally, finding and selecting a digital media segment to comply with each of a variety of constraints requires repeated screenings of a work with the screener's attention simultaneously being pulled in numerous directions. Accordingly, existing methods of determining relevant characteristics of digital media require a considerable investment of time with a high likelihood that one of the constraints will be overlooked. For example, if the set of constraints requires that a segment contain a certain actress with a particular product placement in a specific geographic location, the likelihood that a mistake will occur, or that the optimal segment will not be selected, is high.
Therefore, a long-felt and unresolved need exists within the industry for systems and methods that enable the efficient processing, storage, display, and retrieval of desired digital media through the effective use of metadata, and preferably several hierarchical levels or layers of metadata, associated with digital media. Further, as stated above, it is highly desirable that such metadata pertain not only to the digital media as a whole, but with even more specificity down to specific points or spans of time within the particular digital media, for creating a more efficient and effective manner of analyzing such metadata and providing highly relevant or desired output. The present systems and methods provide a convenient graphical interface to enable a user to create, manage, and analyze all or selected segments or portions of such digital media using time-based or time-correlated metadata associated with the underlying digital media.
There is a further need for system and methods that enable the displaying, organizing, and managing of metadata associated with digital media. The system preferably first enables the ingestion and management of a master file containing information relevant to a respective digital media asset and related metadata (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,668,869, which is incorporated herein by reference), and then enables the display of all or selected portions or segments of the digital media asset and its underlying metadata on a computer implemented user interface. Preferably, existing metadata associated with the digital media can not only be analyzed, but additional metadata can be identified and created and associated with the relevant points in time or span in time in which the underlying metadata pertains to the digital media asset. Examples of metadata includes objects, persons, scenes, locations, products, or music present in a particular scene, segment, point in time, or span of time within the digital media. In preferred embodiments, at least some of the metadata is automatically ingested for a respective digital media asset associated with a customer or end user. The system and methods then preferably enable the customer or end user (or one affiliated with the customer or end user) to manage and analyze all or selected segments or portions of such digital media using time-based or time-correlated metadata associated with the underlying digital media. The system and methods also, preferably, enable the customer or end user (or one affiliated with the customer or end user) to create new time-based metadata, edit, or delete ingested or user-created metadata. Such creation and editing includes the ability to create not only top level tracks (or categories) of metadata, but also to create subtracks (or subcategories) or sub-subtracks (or sub-subcategories) of metadata in a hierarchical manner or arrangement and to associate the same with all or selected segments or portions of such digital media preferably in a time-based or time-correlated manner.
There are additional needs for systems and methods for displaying and managing metadata associated with digital media that enable such metadata to be classified into categories (or tracks) and further subdivided into increasingly more specific subcategories (or sub-tracks). The resulting categories and subcategories of metadata may then be analyzed or searched against using various filters and search techniques—for example, a user may be interested in viewing all instances of the appearance of an actor or actress in a particular geographic location, but only for which the user has clearance for all copyrighted material in the segment. By selecting the appropriate categories and subcategories in the manner described herein, the user can analyze and select among the relevant video segments for those segments that meet his or her requirements. The metadata is preferably temporally associated with the digital media, in that metadata segments comprise a point in time or span of time corresponding to the relevant time codes of the underlying digital media asset.
The application and uses of such systems and methods are varied and numerous. For example, an authorized user may select from a number of either predetermined categories and subcategories through which digital media may be filtered, applying multiple variables and obtaining reliable output—an appropriate film clip, for example, to be shown on several different television appearances by an actress, each appearance requiring a different set of constraints. Accordingly, not only is there a need for systems and methods that cost effectively eliminate man-hours in reviewing and selecting media segments, but also systems and methods that remove undesirable variables, such as human error.
The above needs and features, as well as additional aspects and business applications, are disclosed herein and will become readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art after reading and studying the following summary of the present inventions, the detailed description of preferred embodiments, and the claims included hereinafter.